The Hindu Business Line : No Eclipse of Sun's product

GIFT-WRAPPED as a $40-million bounty from IBM to the Open Source community was Eclipse, a platform for "everything and nothing in particular". Sun was not too happy when Eclipse came around, and we are not talking about solar eclipse. However, after those initial hiccups, Sun Microsystems and IBM now look at Eclipse as "an important chance to meet the challenge of Microsoft's .NET initiative, and - most important - to get Java back to the desktop."

All that input from the intro of Eclipse 2 for Java Developers by Berthold Daum can be sufficiently gripping to get started.

"Because of its plug-in architecture, Eclipse is as adaptable as a chameleon and can find a habitat in quite different environments," says the author, and I can already see some politicians trying to take a peek at Eclipse.

Those who know about IBM's WebSphere Application Developer (WSAD) would appreciate that Eclipse, with about 70 plug-ins compared to WSAD's 500-700, is more like "the community edition". Be warned, however, that the book assumes readers to have a "good knowledge of Java and object-oriented programming concepts" and examples are "from multimedia area." If you want to download Eclipse, it is 62 MB plus.

One of the first things you need to get is `perspective'. "We must first open an Eclipse perspective," guides the author. "Perspectives consist of a combination of windows and tools that is best suited for particular tasks." And the Java development environment takes over.

Screenshots in the pages do more than explain the sequences; they are enticing, so you would start itching to plunge into Java even if you aren't Java-literate, because much of the code is pre-generated. There is also a `scrapbook' where you can try out Java expressions or just jot down a new idea. And `code assistant' will pop-up a list of expressions to save you from tedious typing.

Chapter 3 implements an `example project' based on FreeTTS speech synthesizer - to create a GUI that "includes an animated face that moves its lips synchronously with the speech output." First, "to achieve good lip synchronisation it is necessary to have event notification for single phonemes."

The author explains in `a short excursion into speech synthesis' the various steps starting from tokenizer and ending in audio player.

Developers can gain valuable inputs from the chapter on project development that discusses debugging and documentation, plus `JUnit' that makes it possible to `code a little, test a little'. Among the `advanced topics in project development' are issues such as teamwork, version management and so on.

Part two of the book is about SWT (Standard Widget Toolkit) and JFace that are Eclipse's alternatives to Java's AWT and Swing. And in part three, the author shows how Eclipse can be deployed as a tool platform.

Essential knowledge to be equipped with to avert getting eclipsed.

Java made easy

WITH a character that seems to be stepping straight out of some Shakespearean play, the cover page of JSTL in Action by Shawn Bayern sets the mood before the book goes on to show you "how to produce flexible, powerful Web pages even without knowing any more than HTML." JSTL stands for JSP Standard Tag Library, and JSP is JavaServer Pages. While JSP hid some of the hard details of writing full-fledged programs, JSTL goes one step further on the ease of use scale.

Chapter 1 begins with `the boring life of a web browser'. To make pages `interesting or interactive', designers make the `same mistake' of sending a program code like JavaScript to the web browsers. "In fact, most of the interesting software code on the Web runs on servers."

Also, it is important to realise that "web browsers and web servers don't work like chat rooms, where multiple parties might stay connected for hours and transmit data whenever they want to."

A chapter is devoted to using databases. However, for smaller applications, a useful crutch is sql:setDataSource{gt}, notes the book. "In case your organisation doesn't have a database for you to use, you can set up a small, free database system call hsqldb."

Chapter 13 presents a `case study in building a Web site' that is about constructing a portal. "We'll essentially use JSTL to create a primitive content-management system that lets us plug in new channels to our master web site." JSTL for programmers, part 4 of the book, comforts non-programmers: "Be ambitious. Java isn't that hard to learn, and JSTL is designed to make things easier." It has many tips, such as: When a page mixes HTML and Java code, the page often becomes difficult to read, edit or test; and, XML files are simple text files, but when programs work with them, they do so using an amazingly large array of strategies.

Recommended action: JSTL ASAP.

Homing in on home page

SO, you're still hanging on in the outer fringes wondering if you would ever be able to produce your own home page. James Pence knows your problem and comes with an answer: How to do Everything with HTML & XHTML: A Beginner's Guide. The cover exhorts: "Get your feet wet with all the basics; build and keep your website running smoothly; add style and substance to your site." And the back cover clarifies: "This book is designed for anybody who has ever wanted to do a Web site, but just hasn't got any idea where to start." You're not a techie, nor one who claims to be an expert, but you are comfortable with your PC, with ability to navigate, copy files, change directories, install software and so on. "You're past the stage of being afraid that your system might self-destruct if you do something wrong. You're also willing to learn and not afraid of trying something new. Most important, you really want to be able to design and build your own Web pages." You nod vigorously, "Yes, yes," and you know where to start.

The author is a `full-time freelance writer', a novelist, gospel chalk artist, who uses his talents to reach out to inmates in the Texas prison system. "This is the very best book in the world" is among the Amazon.com reviews.

Where does the X in XHTML come from, you wonder? That is `extensible'. "Because of the explosive growth of the Internet, HTML is being stretched far beyond its capacity. For example, if musicians want to create a Web page with markup for musical notation, they are out of luck - HTML does not have the ability to accommodate this kind of specialisation." There comes X to help.

With a book like this, there would be little motivation to stay on the fringes.

Books courtesy: Wiley Dreamtech India P Ltd (www.wileydreamtech.com)

Books2Byte@thehindu.co.in

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